Image Credit: Greg Gayne/CBS; Ron P. Jaffe/CBS; Michael Lavine/FOX
Hello, friends!
As we all prepare to celebrate the annual celebration of Saturnalia, it is with great excitement that I present to you this week’s column! Why am I so excited? Because I get a week of vacation starting… Oh, crap! Ten hours ago!
We better get a move on. But while I’m away, remember to keep sending in your questions to spoilerroom@ew.com and sending em via Twitter. (@EWSandraG) See y’all soon!
‘THE MENTALIST’: RED JOHN MYSTERY WILL ‘RAMP UP’
The Red John story line has taken so many twists and turns since last season’s epic finale that that story line has largely taken a backseat to other fun capers. But that won’t be the case all season. In fact, Daniel Cerone, executive producer and writer of next week’s “Fugue in Red,” tells me this week’s episode, which will find Jane reverting to his con-man ways after an accident, will “reframe who Red John is in the life of our character” and ultimately set the stage for a second half of the season that will see more action from this fan-favorite story line.
“[This] will definitely ramp up toward the end of the season more than the middle part, but we do have a nice build,” he says. “We’ve introduced this character, Darcy, who is investigating the supposed reemergence of Red John, but the more time that she spends with Jane, the more suspicious she’s going to become of him. So that investigation into Red John is going to take many twists and turns before the end of the season.”
Meanwhile, loyal reader Rebecca wrote in asking for scoop on Cho and his new CI, Summer. Happy to hear of the positive response to Summer, Cerone offered up, “Cho is such a mystery man because he has a very stoic exterior,” he says. “So we thought it would be fun to create a character who could try to get under that and, you know, opposites attract. So we wanted to find both a character and an actress who were sort of completely random and untethered as possible just to see what would occur. So far, it’s been a lot of fun because there is natural chemistry between them.” (Come back next week for more on the midseason finale of The Mentalist and more from my chat with Cerone!)
‘TERRA NOVA’: ALLISON MILLER TALKS ‘HEARTBREAKING’ FINALE DEATH, MORE
Terra Nova‘s future remains unknown, but should there not be a second season, Allison Miller (who plays Skye on the Steven Spielberg-produced drama) wants fans to know, you will hate not knowing what comes next. “There’s going to be so much left unanswered,” she says with a laugh. “It would not be fair to anyone to not give us a second season.”
That doesn’t, however, mean everything will go unanswered. For one, fans will learn why Lucas is trying to get the portal to go both ways, they will learn of an organization that has “something else in mind for Terra Nova,” and the source conflict between Lucas and Taylor will be revealed (“You’ll know exactly what has been driving them apart all these years,” she says). Meanwhile, Skye will busy herself trying to get Taylor’s son to spare Josh’s life and “she may be responsible for saving someone else’s life as well.”
“It felt like we went back to the pilot as far as the scope and scale of everything,” she tells EW. “It’s just so huge, it sort of has this post-apocalyptic feel to it that’s dark and interesting.” But what of the death producers have been teasing? Sworn to secrecy, Miller would only say, “I was so disappointed. I mean, it’s heartbreaking. It’s so, so sad.”
‘HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER’: WHAT’S NEXT FOR ROBIN?
I know many of you weren’t too pleased with the way How I Met Your Mother dealt a hard hand to Robin in the midseason finale by revealing she can’t have children. And, as executive producer Carter Bays confirms to yours truly, we also know that Robin never becomes a mom, period. (So, no adoption, etc. — as I had assumed in my recap of the episode. Still, I know the confirmation hurts.)
But what does the new year hold for our dear friend? For one, Bays tells me the next new original episode, airing Jan. 2 (Yay! That’s not too terribly far!) will “reset the stage for Robin.” “In the last episode, she kind of talks about how no one is going to get in the way of her career, and we kind of see her career start to take off, actually,” he says. “She’s going to have some success in an unlikely way. There’s a nice symmetry to what ends up happening with Robin, career wise. There’s other little surprises along the way — that’s the big headline for Robin.”
And as far as how long the gang will be in the dark about her struggles? (Let’s face it, the pole vaulter thing won’t stick for long.) That’s something that will be cleared up fairly quickly, he says. “It just felt right that she wouldn’t tell anyone,” says Bays. “It felt weird having the big heart-to-heart moment with somebody — this is how we felt she would do it. That being said, obviously, the narrator knows about this, he’s telling the story. The secret will get out. It’s not even like it’s this huge secret, but it will come to light down the road.”
NEXT: Scoop on ‘NCIS,’ ‘Criminal Minds,’ ‘White Collar’ and more
